Trinity Academic Awarded Major Children’s Literature Research Grant

Dec 12, 2013

Dr Pádraic Whyte, Assistant Professor in English,
Trinity College Dublin, has received funding to develop a National Collection
of Children’s Books database and help establish Dublin as a world centre of
children’s literature research.

Dr Whyte and his colleague Dr Keith O’Sullivan, Church
of Ireland College of Education, have been awarded a major Irish Research
Council grant of over €350,000 to develop the children’s book project. This
interdisciplinary and inter-institutional project will also involve the
examination of children’s book collections in the city of Dublin. Over a period
of two years, a team of researchers will document children’s book collections
held in several Irish institutions including Trinity College, the National
Library of Ireland, the Church of Ireland College of Education, St Patrick’s
College, Drumcondra and Pearse Street Library.

The project will provide a comprehensive catalogue of
children’s books in Dublin, consolidating the many varied and disparate
collections found in the five libraries in Dublin. It will highlight the
potential of each collection for the development of research, primarily in the
disciplines of literary studies and education studies. The national collection database
will provide a solid foundation from which scholars, both Irish and
international, may conduct advanced research in children’s literature.

Speaking about the significance of the project, Dr
Whyte commented: “This is a really exciting time for the study of children’s literature
in Ireland. We have an MPhil programme in Children’s Literature at the School
of English, we have over 10,000 children’s books in The Pollard Collection of
Children’s Books at Trinity Library, and now we have this project to create the
National Collection of Children’s Books. The award from the Irish Research
Council is a real endorsement of the importance of research in this area. It’s
also a recognition that we as a nation must value and promote our literary
heritage as well as our fantastic library holdings and resources. I have no
doubt that this project will attract scholars from all over Ireland and the
world to research children’s literature in Dublin.”

The collaborative venture will provide scholars and
students of children's literature, childhood studies, and education with an
online resource detailing bibliographical, copy-specific information about key
texts in the city's collections. At present, no central resource exists for
research in children’s books in Ireland. This project will gather and
consolidate information from a range of catalogues and listings, allow
researchers to search all collections simultaneously, provide overviews of the
research potential of each collection, and present detailed accounts of and
digital images from significant children’s texts.

Dr O’Sullivan, from the Church of Ireland College of Education, an
associate college of Trinity, added: “The dissemination of information through
a book, an online open-access resource, and a public exhibition ensures that
the wider public can also access findings from the project. Public bodies that
will have a particular interest in the research findings include Children’s
Books Ireland, the International Board on Books for Young People (Ireland), the
Reading Association of Ireland, and Dublin UNESCO City of Literature.”

This
project, which will be based at the School
of English and is supported by the Trinity Long Room Hub, will contribute to the development of the current
strong Irish profile in children’s literature research by providing a resource
for taught modules and independent research. It also has the potential to
inform the development of research and teaching in Trinity, Church of Ireland College
of Education and other institutions at undergraduate, masters, doctoral, and
postdoctoral levels, particularly in areas such as children's literature,
education, childhood studies, cultural studies, library studies, gender
studies, history, and art.